1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to animal husbandry and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for sorting livestock animals.
At various stages in their life cycle and development, livestock animals such as pigs, cattle, sheep, and poultry are housed in discrete locations for feeding, breeding, processing and transport.
In the hog industry, for example, newborn piglets may initially be contained in a gestation area and thereafter routed to a nursery area for further development. At a later stage, certain hogs may be culled from the population based on specific characteristics and routed to other processing areas. Eventually, the mature hogs will be routed for loading onto transportation vehicles.
The relocation of livestock animals causes numerous problems for the animals as well as for the industry workers. Livestock animals under such conditions are stressed by many factors including changes in their environment, feed, and weather conditions. However, stress involved in physically relocating the livestock animals is regarded as the most detrimental. Moreover, the physical exertion, fatigue, and frustration associated with relocating livestock makes it one of the least desirable tasks for workers in the industry.
Traditionally, in the hog industry the worker has utilized a handheld barrier or panel to herd the animals in the desired direction and block their movement to an unwanted area. Such handheld barriers were often made of iron or steel and were extremely heavy and inconvenient for this purpose. Because pigs are resistive and become agitated and stressed in response to this forced movement, they tend to avoid the handheld barriers and the process becomes tedious and frustrating. Moreover, this blocking technique must be directed at only one animal at a time.
Under these conditions the animal often impacts the barrier causing in injury to both the animal and the worker resulting in obvious economic losses.
Thus, the present invention has been developed to provide a method and apparatus for solving these problems and other shortcomings of the prior art.